Well, as of right now, Reverend Terry Jones is not going to burn the Quran. I am certainly pleased about that. I have not heard a single Christian in Tyler say, “Burn the Quran? What a great idea!”
I heard much talk last week about the lives of military men and women becoming more threatened. I heard renewed debate in some quarters about whether or not Christians could or should serve in the Armed Forces.
Of course, throughout history, there have been a number of Christians who have been pacifists or conscientious objectors. In the Restoration Movement, of which I am a part, there was a strain of believers who were pacifists. I have good friends today who are pacifists, and I respect them greatly. I also disagree with them, and I hope it is in a very agreeable way.
Today, I want to mention only one reason for my disagreement. I will do so in the form of a question, which I have never heard raised: can a Christian serve on the police force?
After all, throughout history, have there not been leaders and officers in police departments throughout the world who have been corrupt? Furthermore, are there not times when men and women in the police force are called upon to take the lives of other human beings? Is not an occasional byproduct of police action violence and the destruction to human beings and property?
I see many parallels between serving in the police department and serving in the military. Perhaps, those who see a difference between the two have good reasons for their beliefs. Perhaps, there are some who believe it is wrong for a Christian to serve in the police department AND in the military. Either way, I would be delighted to hear from you–either in comments on this blog or in a personal way such as email or Facebook.
Five Things I Think I Think (with a nod to Peter King for this idea)
1. I am ready to use my iPhone in my vehicles. Anybody found an effective means of doing so? I have yet to meet a person who is satisfied with the FM frequency option.
2. I am currently investigating whether or not Alex Barron is Phil Pozderac’s biological son.
3. I have never attended ACU’s Summit. The last time I was able to attend the old Lectureship was when we lived in West Texas in 2006. I am looking forward to attending Summit next week.
4. I am about to finish JUDE with my Sunday night audience. I am tempted to preach NUMBERS next.
5. The longer I think about it, the more I think it is essential that ETCA get its weight room running again for the athletes. I believe they are not as physically strong as last year. The school's new move has been good; and ETCA can continue to get better, which will in turn attract more students.
2 comments:
Per your request, I'm posting these comments from the e-mail I sent you:
• Due to the breadth of responsibilities and tasks that both police and military take on, it can at times be difficult to differentiate between the two. I'll lapse into generalities a bit, but wanted to say that I do recognize the inherent problem there.
• Generally speaking, military personnel are more frequently in a position to take lives. I know that police can also find themselves in that position, but would it be fair to say that it does not have as prominent a place in their job description? I remember when the video came out of the helicopter crew killing those journalists by mistake. Everyone was horrified at how the soldiers laughed and joked about the killing, but psychologists defended them, saying that they had to be desensitized to killing in order to do their job. That isn't normally said about police.
• Rarely are police called upon to do their duty by attacking other officers doing their duty. That is, it is maintained that a Christian soldier doing his Christian duty can be called upon to kill another Christian soldier who is doing the same. I can't think of a situation in which police are regularly called upon to do that. I have great problems with Christians killing one another, though some have argued that it is even worse for us to kill non-Christians. I just can't see saying, "We have a bond of unity and love, we're part of the same body, but I need to kill you now."
• I still maintain that soldiers are at times called upon to attack targets without having a good idea of whom they are attacking or whom else might be affected. Men in the military have argued this with me, but for their sake, I hope I'm right. If not, the number of civilian casualties has no excuse.
• Seldom do we know the whole story behind military action. When we do, it's rarely a pleasant story. I don't question the honor of individual men who fought; they were acting upon what they knew and what they'd been told. But we know from history that we rarely know the entire story. Go through war after war in our country's history, and the majority of them were painted as something other than what they were. World War II is the great exception that is often pointed to, yet we don't want to look too closely at the details of that war either. It's hard for me to find many parallels in police work, though I would say that our friend Norberto's participation in Argentina's Dirty War would be one. He was devastated when he learned the truth of what he had participated in.
• Similarly, it's amazing to me that the very people who so distrust our national government are more than willing to have that same government tell their children whom to fight, what to destroy, and whom to kill. We don't want them running our health care, but we grant them this power over the lives of our sons and daughters.
Thanks for addressing this and also for letting me share my thoughts.
Grace and peace,
Tim Archer
Tim, I really appreciate you posting these. You points are well thought out and I look forward to other people reading them.
ME
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